House of Councillors elections were held in Japan on July 11, 2010. In the previous elections in 2007 the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had lost its majority to the Democratic Party (DPJ), which managed to gain the largest margin since its formation in 1996. The House of Councillors is elected by halves to six-year terms. The seats up for election in 2010 were last contested in the 2004 election.

Background On 11 June 2008, a non-binding censure motion was passed by parliament's opposition-controlled House of Councillors against then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Filed by the DPJ and two other parties, it was the first censure motion against a prime minister under Japan's post-war constitution. Ahead of the G8 summit, it attacked his handling of domestic issues including an unpopular medical plan and called for a snap election or his resignation. On 12 June a motion of confidence was passed by the lower house's ruling coalition to counter the censure. Fukuda abruptly announced he was retiring as leader. Taro Aso won the subsequent election, which was held on 22 September 2008.

In the 2009 lower house election, the DPJ gained an historic majority, being the first non-LDP party to hold a majority in that house since the LDP's formation and is scheduled to lead the second non-LDP government in the aforementioned time period (with upper house allies the Social Democratic Party of Japan and the People's New Party). Following the election, Aso resigned as LDP president. Sadakazu Tanigaki was elected the leader of LDP on September 28, 2009.Roland Buerk (2009-9-28) "Japan's LDP chooses a new leader" BBC Tokyo

The House of Councillors election in 2010 was viewed as potentially leading to the extinction of the LDP. Some of the LDP's most popular councillors, such as Yoichi Masuzoe and Kaoru Yosano, left the party prior to the election. However, the DPJ's popularity had been negatively impacted by fundraising scandals surrounding its president Yukio Hatoyama and secretary general Ichiro Ozawa, both of whom resigned on June 2, 2010. Naoto Kan became prime minister after Hatoyama's resignation and proposed a controversial increase in the consumption tax to shore up Japanese public finances. The campaign season was only three weeks long, which frustrated efforts to have policy debates between the two major parties and the numerous third parties in the election.

Pre-election composition

↓ 66 44 7 9 10 51 55 Coalition seats not up seats up seats up Opposition seats not up Results The result of the election was declared on July 12, 2010. The ruling DPJ lost many of its seats and the opposition LDP gained more seats in comparison to the last election, held in 2007. Your Party performed well in this election, while the DPJ's junior coalition partner, the People's New Party, performed poorly.

DPJ nomination strategy in multi-member districts DPJ secretary-general Ichirō Ozawa had decided on an offensive strategy for nominating candidates in multi-member districts (MMDs): The DPJ was to nominate two candidates in all MMDs with the exceptions of Niigata where an SDP-affiliated independent incumbent was in the race and Fukuoka where a PNP incumbent sought reelection. This strategy was reaffirmed after Ozawa's resignation in June 2010The Japan Times, June 18, 2010: DPJ sticks to Ozawa election strategy even though the DPJ's support rate had significantly fallen by then and winning both seats in a SNTV two-member district requires a very high margin in terms of party votes and an equal distribution of votes on the two candidates.

The strategy failed: all two-member districts split seats evenly between DPJ and LDP in 2010. In some districts the party even risked losing both seats due to vote splitting,The Japan Times, July 10, 2010: DPJ shoots itself in foot in Shizuoka. Ozawa's plan to field multiple candidates divides party's electoral base and lets in LDP a danger that did not materialize in the election result.

The LDP on the other hand nominated only one candidate per MMD – exceptions being Miyagi, Chiba and Tokyo –, thus concentrating all LDP votes on one candidate.

The election results in MMDs gave 20 seats to the DPJ, 18 to the LDP, three to the Kōmeitō and three to Your Party. The only districts where the DPJ won two seats and an advantage in seats over the LDP were Tokyo (5 seats) where administrative reform minister Renhō received a record 1.7 million votes and Toshio Ogawa ranked fourth and DPJ stronghold Aichi (3 seats) where DPJ candidates only finished second and third behind LDP newcomer Masahito Fujikawa.

LDP gains Part of the LDP victory were the results in the 29 single-member districts where the DPJ received roughly 7 million votes winning eight districts while the LDP received 8.25 million votes and 21 seats, among them seven pickups compared to the pre-election composition of the chamber: Aomori, Akita, Tottori and Nagasaki from the DPJ Kagawa and Tokushima from the NRP, both from former LDP members, and Tochigi which had been a two-member district until 2010 with seats held by DPJ and NRP. The LDP also gained seven additional seats in two-member districts, but exclusively seats it had previously lost by party switchovers or resignations: in Hokkaidō from the Sunrise Party, in Niigata where Naoki Tanaka had switched parties together with his wife Makiko from an SDP-affiliated independent, in Gifu from an ex-LDP independent, in Nagano a vacant seat previously held by the LDP, in Hiroshima and Fukuoka from the PNP and only in Shizuoka directly from the DPJ where the Democrats had held both seats up because of the resignation of Yukiko Sakamoto in 2009 and the DPJ's victory in the resulting by-election. The vote in the districts with three (Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Aichi, Ōsaka) or five (Tōkyō) seats up went clearly to the DPJ with a 3.5 million vote edge over the LDP, but produced only a two-seat difference in the House of Councillors: the LDP won six, the DPJ eight seats.

If compared to the 2004 election when the same class of Councillors was last elected, the LDP only gained five prefectural district seats and lost three seats in the nationwide proportional representation.

Detailed results Elected

+ Prefectural districts Constituency Previous members Elected members Votes % Status Hokkaido & Tohoku Hokkaido Yoshio Nakagawa SP Gaku Hasegawa LDP 948,267 34.3 LDP gain from SP Naoki Minezaki DPJ Eri Tokunaga DPJ 708,523 25.6 DPJ hold Aomori Masami Tanabu DPJ Tsutomu Yamazaki LDP 287,385 46.8 LDP gain from DPJ Iwate Ryo Shuhama DPJ Ryo Shuhama DPJ 351,545 54.2 DPJ hold Miyagi Ichiro Ichikawa Ind. Yutaka Kumagai LDP 265,343 26.8 LDP gain from Ind. Mitsuru Sakurai DPJ Mitsuru Sakurai DPJ 241,460 24.4 DPJ hold Akita Yoetsu Suzuki DPJ Hiroo Ishii LDP 328,771 55.6 LDP gain from DPJ Yamagata Koichi Kishi LDP Koichi Kishi LDP 263,987 43.6 LDP hold Fukushima Teruhiko Mashiko DPJ Teruhiko Mashiko DPJ 340,947 34.4 DPJ hold Mitsuhide Iwaki LDP Mitsuhide Iwaki LDP 338,265 34.1 LDP hold Kanto Ibaraki Hiroshi Okada LDP Hiroshi Okada LDP 499,566 38.7 LDP hold Akira Gunji DPJ Akira Gunji DPJ 307,022 23.8 DPJ hold Tochigi Susumu Yanase DPJ Michiko Ueno LDP 499,566 38.7 LDP gain from DPJ Tetsuro Yano NRP Seat abolished NRP loss Gunma Hirofumi Nakasone LDP Hirofumi Nakasone LDP 558,659 60.6 LDP hold Yukio Tomioka DPJ Seat abolished DPJ loss Saitama Masakazu Sekiguchi LDP Masakazu Sekiguchi LDP 655,028 20.6 LDP hold Makoto Nishida Komei Makoto Nishida Komei 594,678 18.7 Komei hold Chiyako Shimada DPJ Motohiro Ōno DPJ 557,298 17.5 DPJ hold Chiba Kazuyasu Shiina LDP Hiroyuki Konishi LDP 545,632 20.2 LDP hold Wakako Hironaka DPJ Kuniko Inoguchi DPJ 513,772 19.3 DPJ hold New seat Kenichi Mizuno YP 476,259 17.9 YP win Tokyo Renhō DPJ Renhō DPJ 1,710,734 28.1 DPJ hold Yuji Sawa Komei Toshiko Takeya Komei 806,862 13.2 Komei hold Masaharu Nakagawa LDP Masaharu Nakagawa LDP 711,171 11.7 LDP hold Toshio Ogawa DPJ Toshio Ogawa DPJ 696,672 11.4 DPJ hold New seat Kota Matsuda YP 656,029 10.8 YP win Kanagawa Akio Koizumi LDP Akio Koizumi LDP 982,220 25.2 LDP hold Keiko Chiba DPJ Kenji Nakanishi YP 788,729 20.2 YP gain from DPJ DPJ Yoichi Kaneko DPJ 745,143 19.1 DPJ hold Chubu Niigata Naoki Tanaka DPJ Naoki Tanaka DPJ 439,289 37.9 DPJ hold Masamichi Kondo Ind. LDP 412,217 35.5 LDP gain from Ind. Toyama Tsunenori Kawai LDP Kōtarō Nogami LDP 322,739 56.2 LDP hold Ishikawa Naoki Okada LDP Naoki Okada LDP 304,511 55.5 LDP hold Fukui Masaaki Yamazaki LDP Masaaki Yamazaki LDP 212,605 51.2 LDP hold Yamanashi Azuma Koshiishi DPJ Azuma Koshiishi DPJ 187,010 43.0 DPJ hold Nagano Vacant LDP Kenta Wakabayashi LDP 293,539 26.4 LDP hold Toshimi Kitazawa DPJ Toshimi Kitazawa DPJ 290,027 26.1 DPJ hold Gifu Iwao Matsuda Ind. Takeyuki Watanabe LDP 425,594 44.0 LDP gain from Ind. Yasuo Yamashita DPJ DPJ 229,225 23.7 DPJ hold Shizuoka DPJ Shigeki Iwai LDP 554,459 32.3 LDP gain from DPJ Yuji Fujimoto DPJ Yuji Fujimoto DPJ 485,507 28.2 DPJ hold Aichi Katsuhito Asano LDP Masahito Fujikawa LDP 918,187 28.6 LDP hold Taisuke Sato DPJ Yoshitaka Saitō DPJ 750,723 23.4 DPJ hold Yoshitake Kimata DPJ Misako Yasui DPJ 676,681 21.1 DPJ hold Mie Hirokazu Shiba DPJ Hirokazu Shiba DPJ 360,697 40.6 DPJ hold Kansai Shiga Kumiko Hayashi DPJ Kumiko Hayashi DPJ 317,756 48.6 DPJ hold Kyoto Tetsuro Fukuyama DPJ Tetsuro Fukuyama DPJ 374,550 34.3 DPJ hold Satoshi Ninoyu LDP Satoshi Ninoyu LDP 308,296 28.2 LDP hold Osaka Eiichi Yamashita Komei Hirotaka Ishikawa Komei 864,278 22.1 Komei hold Issei Kitagawa LDP Issei Kitagawa LDP 706,986 18.1 LDP hold Motoyuki Odachi DPJ Motoyuki Odachi DPJ 698,933 17.9 DPJ hold Hyogo Shinsuke Suematsu LDP Shinsuke Suematsu LDP 694,459 29.4 LDP hold Shunichi Mizuoka DPJ Shunichi Mizuoka DPJ 515,541 21.8 DPJ hold Nara Kiyoshige Maekawa DPJ Kiyoshige Maekawa DPJ 308,490 47.6 DPJ hold Wakayama Yōsuke Tsuruho LDP Yōsuke Tsuruho LDP 273,960 56.8 LDP hold Chugoku Tottori Kotaro Tamura DPJ Kazuyuki Hamada LDP 158,445 50.8 LDP gain from DPJ Shimane Mikio Aoki LDP Kazuhiko Aoki LDP 222,448 52.9 LDP hold Okayama Satsuki Eda DPJ Satsuki Eda DPJ 474,280 54.8 DPJ hold Hiroshima Ikuo Kamei PNP Yoichi Miyazawa LDP 547,845 45.5 LDP gain from PNP Minoru Yanagida DPJ Minoru Yanagida DPJ 295,276 24.5 DPJ hold Yamaguchi Nobuo Kishi LDP Nobuo Kishi LDP 421,055 57.8 LDP hold Shikoku Tokushima Masakatsu Koike NRP Yūsuke Nakanishi LDP 142,763 38.3 LDP gain from NRP Kagawa Toshio Yamauchi NRP Yoshihiko Isozaki LDP 236,134 51.4 LDP gain from NRP Ehime Junzo Yamamoto LDP Junzo Yamamoto LDP 351,624 52.7 LDP hold Kochi Hajime Hirota DPJ Hajime Hirota DPJ 137,306 37.5 DPJ hold Kyushu & Okinawa Fukuoka Gotaro Yoshimura PNP Satoshi Ōie LDP 774,618 35.3 LDP gain from PNP Tsutomu Okubo DPJ Tsutomu Okubo DPJ 673,749 30.7 DPJ hold Saga Hiromi Iwanaga LDP Takamaro Fukuoka LDP 256,673 60.5 LDP hold Nagasaki Tadashi Inuzuka DPJ Genjirō Kaneko LDP 344,182 48.8 LDP gain from DPJ Kumamoto Yoshifumi Matsumura LDP Yoshifumi Matsumura LDP 393,674 44.2 LDP hold Oita Shinya Adachi DPJ Shinya Adachi DPJ 294,286 48.7 DPJ hold Miyazaki Shinpei Matsushita LDP Shinpei Matsushita LDP 303,711 58.6 LDP hold Kagoshima Tetsuro Nomura LDP Tetsuro Nomura LDP 437,740 55.0 LDP hold Okinawa Aiko Shimajiri LDP Aiko Shimajiri LDP 258,946 47.6 LDP hold